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All eyes on Bill Shuster, new transportation chairman

Members on both side of the aisle have high expectations for Bill Shuster. | AP Photo

“He’s not really viewed as a moderate Republican. He’s viewed as conservative,” Ribble said. “When he speaks to the conference, the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which I consider myself a part of, listens to him.”

One exception might be hard-liners who want to wind down the federal gas tax and devolve transportation functions to the states. Shuster strongly opposes such a scenario, though Heritage Action for America said it expects to lobby him nonetheless.

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“Mr. Shuster may not be a fan of turn back [to states], but we anticipate having open and honest discussions with him about the proper role of the states in transportation,” said HAA spokesman Dan Holler.

Shuster is also more tapped into House leadership than Mica, serving on the whip team, and one well-connected transportation lobbyist said that could deliver more autonomy.

“I think that he is motivated by using his position in the majority and with the blessing of leadership to really get something done,” the lobbyist said.

Rahall told POLITICO his relationships with Shuster and his dad are “excellent” and that he hopes Shuster’s closeness with top GOP brass will give him the green light to run the committee his own way.

“By his own admission [Mica] didn’t run the show. And I’m looking forward to Mr. Shuster running the show,” Rahall said. “It’s my hope that he will have more autonomy. I recall his father bucking the leadership on their side, i.e. Mr. [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich, from the get-go. And winning.”

Words like “detail-oriented” and “reasonable” pop up when members of Congress talk about Shuster — but there’s a wait-and-see approach to whether Shuster’s chairmanship will include “bipartisan.” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said Shuster’s already assured him of some level of cooperation with the minority — though Mica maintains he tried to work with Democrats as much as possible.

“He doesn’t want to do it the way it happened this last time where the Democrats get presented a finished bill written by some outside group,” DeFazio said, though neither he nor Rahall explicitly predict two years of Kumbaya on the committee.

That’s because the to-do list is long and the political atmosphere in the Capitol on spending — unavoidable when infrastructure or transportation topics come up — is so toxic that there are bound to be stumbles. Shuster will oversee a water resources bill early next year and a new plan for passenger rail, not to mention the big one: a long-term effort to shore up the country’s roads, bridges and transit.

He will also have to find a way to pay for infrastructure without infuriating his own party and without earmarks, which previous chairmen like his father and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) were able to wield in a way that eased passage of complex transportation bills. Mica’s long said that passing the $118 billion surface bill without earmarks was one of his most difficult tasks — and no one expects it to get any easier in 2013.

Shuster said he feels the expectations, but it’s a job he’s always wanted and he’s ready for it.

“A lot of people look back at what my father was able to accomplish. So yeah, that adds extra pressure,” he told POLITICO. “But this is not your father’s Congress. And I have license to say that.”